In Four Acts
by MarcusJuniusBrutus
Summary: Johnny sees the death of a former student.
1. Act I

Johnny Smith's wet shoes squeaked over the white tiles of the Bangor Public Library, and he slowed to a tiptoe, conscious of the sound. Then he realized low conversation buzzed around the building, and no one was shushing him for making noise. Maybe libraries had changed while he'd been in a coma, or maybe he was just remembering them incorrectly. He thought they'd insisted on total silence.

To be on the safe side, he continued to sneak through – a dark shadow in the bright, pristine interior. He attracted some stares, but he was used to that. It might have been his black clothes or the fame that clung to him as close as those rain-soaked clothes plastered to his body. Thunder rumbled, and he flicked a glance up at the glass dome above his head that separated him from the elements.

"Mr. Smith?"

Johnny briefly pursed his lips before forcing a pleasantly open expression and braced himself to meet a fan or reporter or some other stranger. When he turned, he saw the pretty young woman who'd addressed him, approaching timidly, arms wrapped around a stack of books. He squinted at the somewhat familiar face and tried in vain to place it. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I have the feeling I should know you and I can't remember where from."

The girl laughed it off with a shrug and a shake of her pony-tailed head. "I'm surprised you remember me at all. I looked very different when we met. It was ninth grade Bio, and I usually sat in the back…"

"Annie!" Johnny said, snapping his fingers as the name popped into his head.

"Yep. Only without the braces and the acne." She smiled to show off her straight white teeth, and John laughed.

"Give yourself some credit. Of course I remember you. Not only did you get straight A's, but all my tests came back fully illustrated."

Annie blushed. "Science was never my thing, so those doodles helped me keep everything straight."

"Well, they did the trick. What are you doing with yourself these days?"

"Working here."

"Nice. The books treat you well?"

"Can't complain," she said and added, "When I can find them, that is. Not that it's their fault. They don't run away by themselves."

"No, it's the poltergeist that hangs out in the stacks," he deadpanned. Then he saw her frown and circle slowly, he regretted saying anything. "Kidding. I don't see ghosts."

"I just thought, being psychic…"

"Sorry, but I don't think we can blame it on ghosts. Just library patrons who don't know Dewey."

"It wouldn't matter if they did. We use Library of Congress classification around here."

"Maybe that's the problem, then."

"Maybe. Oh, I should probably go, but I'm glad I saw you again, Mr. Smith." She released one of her arms from the books and held out a hand to them. Then she remembered who she was dealing with, hesitated, and started to lower her hand.

He attempted to relieve her awkwardness by taking the hand. "You, too. By the way… _Mansfield Park_?"

"Yeah?"

"It's tucked behind some kids' books on bugs."

"No way. Show me." She marched to the juvenile nonfiction, and John shrugged and pointed out the shelf where he'd just had a vision of the book she'd been searching for. "Thank you so much! You're brilliant! I really needed this book."

John reached for it automatically and as soon as he touched it, he saw Annie sitting in half-darkness, squinting to read the tiny print. Then her body jerked up and fell face-first onto the ground, blood staining the back of her sweater. The book fell from her open hand and lay beside her still body. "Annie, I don't know how to say this…"

"Did you just have a vision?"

"Yes, and it's very hard…"

"Was it of me dying?"

"How'd you know?"

Annie widened her eyes innocently and reported, "Oh, I think you saw tomorrow."


	2. Act II

"You're going to die tomorrow?" John asked his former student as calmly as he could manage.

"That's the plan, anyway." Then Annie took pity on him and broke the tension with the chuckle that said she'd just fooled the teacher. "Relax, Mr. Smith. It's not for real. I'm in a little community play tomorrow night, and my character's stabbed while reading this book." She pointed at _Mansfield Park_, and Johnny's shoulders sagged with relief.

"I should've let you go on believing in library ghosts," he muttered, grudgingly relaxing. "But why would I have a vision of you _pretending_ to die?"

"I don't know. Because that's what's going to happen?"

"I mean: it seems kind of boring. No offense. But my visions are usually of more significant events than a community play. I'm sure it's great, of course…"

"No, it's pretty bad."

"Really? How so?"

"The script, mainly. Local writer, you know. The costumes, props, and set all look pretty cheap, too. We have some pretty decent actors, though. Not me. I'm not awful, but I'm not one of the stars, either. That's why I asked for the role where I got to die in the first act. Well, that, and I've never acted before."

"Right. Back to that. You're stabbed in the back." He pictured the scene and asked, "Is there fake blood?"

Annie nodded and conceded, "The fake blood's okay. Halloween leftovers, and the audience sees it through my sweater, which helps. I just have to remember to keep facing forward the whole time, otherwise they see it early."

Yes, it could have been fake blood in the vision. Like she said, it was through the sweater. Plus, the stage lighting was pretty dim at that point. "Okay, but would you mind if I stopped by the set with you to poke around? Maybe before your next rehearsal? It'd make me feel a whole lot better about this."

"Oh, you don't have to do that, Mr. Smith…"

"Please?"

"All right. We have our final dress rehearsal tonight. I'm actually heading there in about half an hour if you want to ride with me."

"Perfect." Johnny found a book and a chair and waited out the half-hour. He was too distracted to concentrate on what he was reading, and he ended up listening to the patter of rain on the ceiling for most of the time.

Annie passed occasionally, intent on her work, looking for all the world like any other pleasant young lady. She was sweet, smart, and quiet. She didn't cause trouble. She was a librarian, and in her free time, she took part in a community play. Why, he wondered, would anyone want to kill her?


	3. Act III

The living room where all the action was supposed to happen consisted of thin plywood walls with three open spaces as doorways (sans doors). Stage left, there was a battered writing desk and chair. In the center, there a variety of mismatched furniture formed a semicircle. "Bleak house," Johnny commented, drawing a smile from Annie with the literary reference. He pointed to an unevenly-stained chair with a crooked back. "That's where you die, right? You drop the book and fall forward onto the ground?"

"That's…"

"Annie!" a bearded man barked from across the auditorium. "Have you been leaking the script before the play starts?"

"No, Mr. Hanks. You, see, this is…"

"Holy crows, it's Johnny Smith." His eyes flew open in surprise, and he nearly dropped his giant mug of coffee but recovered by clutching it to his chest with both hands. "It is such an honor to meet you, sir. I'm Hank Hanks, the playwright. But you probably already knew that."

"Hank Hanks?" he repeated skeptically.

"Pen name, but of course, you probably already knew that, too."

As Annie grimaced apologetically, John said, as he had a thousand times before, "No, I'd actually have to touch you to get a vision off you."

"Oh, sorry, I should probably know that, but I don't read much about psychics. The only reason I've read about you is that your life is compelling from a story-teller's perspective. You've had such a long, painful journey, from your coma, to the discovery of your powers, to the abandonment of your fiancé, to…"

"Yes," Johnny interrupted. "It's been very painful, thank you." Hanks nodded understandingly. "But enough about _my_ story. What about yours?" He gestured to the stage behind him. "What's going on here?"

"It's a murder mystery wrapped in a tribute to Jane Austen."

Johnny scrunched his forehead and asked, "And the tribute consists of… Annie's character reading _Mansfield Park_?"

"That's just one of many references. I won't tell you any more, though. You'll just have to come see it for yourself."

"Oh, I plan to."

"Really?"

"Wouldn't want to miss Annie's big debut."

Hanks turned to Annie, slightly surprised, and eyed her with a newfound respect. She smiled but unconsciously shrunk behind Johnny's arm. "Really?" the self-proclaimed playwright repeated, quite lost for words.

"So, since I'm coming to the play anyway, I'm sure you won't mind if I stay to give Annie some moral support during the dress rehearsal?"

"Stage fright," she blurted.

Hanks sighed and shook his head. "You're not the only one. Rodney's looking pretty green. I don't think he wants to come out of his dressing room." He exited with a wave. "Stay as long as you like, Johnny."

"The community center has dressing rooms?" John asked, surprised.

Annie giggled and shook her head. "Well, the men change in the men's bathroom, and the women change in the women's bathroom. So we call those the dressing rooms."

"I see. Mind if I check out the stage?" By that point, he noticed a crowd gathering, but he refused to let embarrassment deter him from what he thought of as his duty.

"Go ahead. I don't think Mr. Hanks minds."

It didn't take long for Johnny's long legs to carry him up the three steps to the slightly raised platform that made up the community center stage. "Who kills you?" he asked.

"Rodney, actually. I think it was his stage fright that got him the part. He was so nervous and twitchy that Mr. Hanks said he looked like a real serial killer." John twitched a little himself when she said that and flicked his gaze over to her. She frowned when she realized what she'd just said. "He isn't really."

John sat in Annie's death chair and saw the same scene as before, frozen at the moment she hit the floor. He stood up and walked around her body. Her killer stood behind her, something red dripping off his knife. His eyes looked anything but nervous – sort of blank, if anything. Extreme stage fright? A killer's lack of remorse? Bad acting? It was tough to say. But that red stuff on the knife… it was too bright for blood.

"Huh," he said, coming out of the vision and standing face-to-face with the fake killer.

The man's jaw was clenched challengingly. Apparently, he'd missed Johnny's conversation with Mr. Hanks, because he asked, "And who might you be?"

Annie hoisted herself onto the stage to stand beside the two men – both a head taller than she. "Jim, this is Mr. Smith, a friend of mine. Mr. Hanks said it was okay for him to be here."

"You call all your friends 'Mister'?" demanded Jim. John had expected this to be Rodney, but quietly waited for something in the conversation to explain his presence.

Annie blushed, looking caught in a lie, but having actually told the truth. "Not all of them. Is there something wrong?"

"Yeah, we're about to start the dress rehearsal."

"Don't we have to wait for Rodney?"

"Rodney's not coming out. Hanks said go on without him."

"But…"

"I'm his understudy, aren't I? I'm filling in." Well, that explained why the man stabbing Annie was Jim, not Rodney.

John skirted back toward the direction that the male actors were approaching from. "Why don't I go talk with him?"

Jim raised an eyebrow and said with a touch of annoyance, "Why don't you go do that."

John left to find the men's room and a man that looked like a serial killer.


	4. Act IV

"Rodney?" John guessed, seeing a nondescript but depressed boy in his early twenties sitting alone on the floor next to a urinal.

"Yes?" Rodney looked up and blinked, trying to place this stranger who was addressing him.

"We haven't met before, but my name's John Smith…"

"Oh, the psychic. Right."

"Can we talk about the play?" John tentatively sat beside him, wishing Rodney had found his seat near the sinks or paper towels or something, anything else. Rodney shrugged, and John glanced around for inspiration. His eyes landed on a flyer for the play, scotch-taped up on a toilet stall door. "It's called _Hanky_?"

"It's supposed to be a play on words. Mr. Hanks thinks this is his masterpiece, so it should have his name. And he thinks the audience will all need hankies just because he kills someone off at the end of every act."

"Even the last one?"

"Yeah. The killer commits suicide."

"Your character." Rodney shrugged again, and Johnny said, "You know who I am. I don't know if you believe in visions or not, but I had one out on the stage just now."

"Of me?"

"Of Jim, actually. He was pretty bad." Here, he had to half-guess, maybe even half-lie. He'd seen no acting either way, but Jim didn't seem like a great actor to him. Even their confrontation felt forced. "Honestly, I don't see how you could do worse."

Rodney smiled. "Thanks for not lying and saying you saw me do great."

"Nope. I've never seen you act. Do _you _think you're any good."

"Yeah, I do, actually. Until I remember all the people watching me. Then I completely freeze up. That's why none of my fellow actors are back here trying to convince me to get back in the game. They know that if I'm afraid, I'm useless." He held up a hand to stop John from speaking. "Don't bother giving me any advice. It doesn't help to imagine the audience in their underwear. They're still there, and then I just add embarrassment to fear. It wouldn't help to focus just on one person – like you, for instance. It used to work when my mom was that person, but now she's dead."

"Ah," John said, starting to see the root of his insecurities. "You know, Rodney, I don't get random visions. They always mean something. And the fact is, I just got a vision of Jim taking your place on stage. Why? Experience tells me I'm meant to change that. So, will you please just do the part?"

"Because I'm meant to?"

"Exactly."

"Fine."

"What? Really?"

"Really. You seem surprised." Rodney scrutinized his face.

"Sure. Usually these things are harder. And have more deaths."

"More than four?" Rodney joked, referring to the four acts of the play.

"Sometimes." John stood and automatically brushed off the back of his pants, not sure what clung to them but imagining a few possibilities all the same.

"Then don't become a playwright."

"Never. I'll see you at the play, Rodney." He exited the men's room with a lilt in his step that almost amounted to a skip. The thunder that still rocked Bangor didn't affect his mood. It didn't reflect events around him. There was nothing ominous at all today. It was something to savor. He flipped open his cell phone to call the Bannerman house. "Sarah," he asked, "what are you doing tomorrow?"


End file.
